In a loud and rousing speech, current President Joe Biden (D) endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris (D) for president, attacked Republican candidate Donald Trump, and bid farewell to the nation with five months remaining in his term in office.
After a raucous welcome by Democrat delegates carrying “We (heart) Joe” signs and name-checking his son, Hunter Biden, and his daughter, Ashley Biden, who introduced him as “the O.G. girl dad”.
Biden then began a series of attacks on his former opponent, Donald Trump. First, the current president invoked the events of January 6, 2021, for which Democrats impeached President Trump after he left office. Throughout his term, President Biden’s Department of Justice has punished any citizen at all associated with the events of that day, with 223 persons arrested just this year.
Next, Biden brought up the events of August 2017 in Charlottesville when a couple hundred activists marched through the campus of the University of Virginia and downtown Charlottesville. Biden accused Trump of labeling the white supremacist marchers as “very fine people,” a characterization of Trump’s words that has been debunked repeatedly.
Some watchers pointed out that Biden spent much of the speech yelling, attacking Trump, and using debunked partisan attack lines.
In his closing, before endorsing his Vice President who won no statewide Democratic Party primaries this past year, Biden pleaded that, “we need to preserve our democracy. In 2024, we need you to vote.” On behalf of Harris and Democrat Vice Presidential Candidate Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), Biden promised they would “lower costs for American families…and lower the cost for food…[and] make housing more affordable.” Biden did not elaborate on why he and Harris had not accomplished those things already, though he did take credit for a rising stock market.
Finally, Biden joked that when his political career began, he was “too young to be a senator” and is now “too old to stay as president.” The President did not announce his resignation.
